She Is Not Your Pet: Wadata Parents Culture -By Hassan Idris

No matter how temperamental and provoked you’re as married couples, learn to control your temper and the words that come out from your mouths. What comes out of your mouth is sometimes destructive than a nuclear bomb. ” The strongest amongst you is he who can control his temper when he’s angry.”

I’ve witnessed a case in Wadata, Makurdi where a man insulted his wife amid his children for a little mistake he can secretly and stylishly correct. That didn’t stop there, he even went ahead to say” you this dirty thing; useless woman, bitch like you” and still beat her mercilessly with his children watching.

For God’s sake, she’s not your pet or your slave, but your partner. When applying the social learning theory in Sociology to this situation, it’s simply emphasizing that those children will learn gradually the act of insulting their younger ones, wives and daughters when they grow up and get married. It won’t stop there, for they would be socialized into the act of beating their wives and thereby resocializing and creating a generation and society of people who insult and beat their wives.

Similarly, I’ve witnessed a case again in Wadata, Makurdi where a woman insulted her husband black and blue amid his children for something they could secretly and stylishly correct or work on together as partners. The family is a functional prerequisite of the society and if this institution is facing such negative culture without adjustment, then there’s a high probability that this juggernaut will affect the entire society and run it amok; for the society is a product of the family.

Hassan Idris.
Sociologist & Poet.
Benue, Nigeria.